Justin Bieber is pulling ahead of One Direction in album sales as we await the final result from their release-day showdown, and while he had a whole press tour that painted Purpose as his anticipated comeback, there was something just as powerful he used to promote his album: Twitter.

The Biebs has 69.8 million followers on Twitter. One Direction has 25.8 million. If he could win over those people alone, he would be a shoe-in for the top spot on the charts. So Bieber went directly to the fans.

In the last two weeks, Twitter has had around 2 million mentions of the album, and on Friday, there were 387,000 mentions, according to research group Brandwatch.

Here's how Bieber took control of his own account and used it to his advantage:

He DMed fans the lyrics to 'What Do you Mean?'

He had a countdown with his celeb friends using a purpose hashtag.

He tweeted out all the press he was getting.

He posted short videos each day to hype up album.

He tweeted out a number so fans could listen to his 'Hotline Bling' remix.

He announced his track list by posting pictures of commissioned graffiti all over the world.

He used one tweet to announce a very special collab.

Once the album came out, he had an emoji for each song.

The most used hashtag was for the Halsey song "The Feeling" with 91,390 uses, according to Brandwatch.

What do you think of Bieber's Twitter campaign? Tell us in the comments.